A switched reluctance machine is a brushless, synchronous machine which has an unequal number of salient rotor and stator poles. There is a concentrated winding on each of the stator poles, but no windings or permanent magnets on the rotor. The stator pole windings on opposite stator poles are energized simultaneously. Ideally, the flux entering the rotor from one stator pole balances the flux leaving the rotor from the diametrically opposite stator pole, so that there is no mutual magnetic coupling among the phases.
In operation, there is an electromagnetic force of attraction between the rotor poles and stator poles of a switched reluctance machine. Hence, by properly positioning the stator phase excitation waveforms relative to the rotor angular position, forward or reverse operation and motoring or generating operation can be achieved In particular, if the windings of two diametrically opposite stator poles are excited when a pair of rotor poles are approaching alignment with these excited stator poles, motoring torque is produced; and when the rotor poles are moving out of alignment with the excited stator poles, generating torque is produced.
A switched reluctance generator system is typically a self-excited system that draws its excitation power from the same dc bus into which it generates power. Such a system is electromagnetically limited to a maximum load current that it is capable of delivering without losing its self-excitation. If the maximum load current for the particular switched reluctance generator system is exceeded, e.g., in case of a fault such as a short circuit, then the generated output voltage drops to zero. Unfortunately, since the system is self-excited, once the voltage drops to zero, generating operation cannot be resumed without external intervention; and a relatively large power source is required to supply the overload, clear the fault and re-excite the generator.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a switched reluctance generator system capable of clearing a fault and recovering from an overload condition so as to resume generating operation, without requiring a relatively large external power source capable of supplying the full overload to re-excite the generator.